The principle of least privilege, the idea of granting only the minimum level of access necessary to perform a function, has long been touted as the panacea for Identity Security. Yet, it is also regarded as one of the hardest practices to achieve.
If implemented too strictly, users are frustrated. If implemented too loosely, you have a state of everything in standing privilege, leaving you with a large attack surface. The cloud has exacerbated the challenge as the sheer number of permissions has exploded, and teams need to move faster to meet the business's needs.
Just-in-time (JIT) solutions have emerged to help organizations move away from high-risk standing privileges. JIT can solve the problem of standing access and allow privileged access for a limited amount of time, but all JIT tools are not created equal.
The JIT Journey to High Security and Zero Impact on Productivity
The challenge with the most JIT tools today is that they are workflow-based solutions that require a manual approval process. This creates a substantial roadblock to widespread adoption as approvals take hours to days and introduce delays that can halt critical workflows.
The result is that developers refuse to use JIT because the added friction slows them down, impacting productivity. In times of high demand, access requests are rubber-stamped without any background or context around the request. These broad permission approvals fail to address specific circumstances or the potential risks associated with each access request.
The drawbacks of manual JIT solutions include:
Cloud and SaaS environments demand speed for developers to meet the needs of the business. In response to the productivity concerns of manual JIT, the next evolution of JIT aimed to improve approval times through static automation with pre-defined rules based on role and policy. And, while the approvals are faster, there is a security tradeoff.
These preconfigured rules look at static attributes such as the requester’s title and role in the organization or time of request for auto-approvals, but they don’t look at dynamic risk or behavioral attributes.
For example, every time Joe requests access to a developer role between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., the request is automatically approved because he is on the engineering team. But how do you know if Joe’s identity has been compromised, if the request does not align with Joe’s usual behavior, or if Joe violated policy last week?
While these solutions improve productivity, they are sacrificing security.
Dynamic JIT goes beyond statically defined rules and incorporates dynamic context around risk, usage, and behavior. AI is critical to providing these data insights and is emerging as the more effective way to modernize JIT to achieve both high security and high productivity.
AI helps by building behavior model baselines to understand what 'normal' or 'expected' behavior looks like and then detects anomalies for anything out of the ordinary.
With dynamic JIT, if Joe requests access to a high-risk privilege and if this is part of his regular routine, including his request history, device, and location, it can be automatically approved.
But what if Joe’s request came from a different location (maybe he is on vacation or perhaps his identity was compromised) or if he made a request more often compared to his peers? This would automatically trigger a manual review with all of the relevant data about Joe and his request. This type of “good friction” based on dynamic context helps your enterprise stay secure and prevent breaches.
AI-powered Dynamic JIT provides the highest security without hindering the productivity of the team while they meet the needs of the business.
By eliminating high-risk standing access by enforcing all access through dynamic JIT, you can strike a balance between robust security and operational efficiency that your teams are looking for. This ultimately means that even when an identity is compromised, there is no risk to the business.
Contact us to learn more about how Andromeda Security is pioneering AI- Powered JIT access with:
The principle of least privilege, the idea of granting only the minimum level of access necessary to perform a function, has long been touted as the panacea for Identity Security. Yet, it is also regarded as one of the hardest practices to achieve.
If implemented too strictly, users are frustrated. If implemented too loosely, you have a state of everything in standing privilege, leaving you with a large attack surface. The cloud has exacerbated the challenge as the sheer number of permissions has exploded, and teams need to move faster to meet the business's needs.
Just-in-time (JIT) solutions have emerged to help organizations move away from high-risk standing privileges. JIT can solve the problem of standing access and allow privileged access for a limited amount of time, but all JIT tools are not created equal.
The JIT Journey to High Security and Zero Impact on Productivity
The challenge with the most JIT tools today is that they are workflow-based solutions that require a manual approval process. This creates a substantial roadblock to widespread adoption as approvals take hours to days and introduce delays that can halt critical workflows.
The result is that developers refuse to use JIT because the added friction slows them down, impacting productivity. In times of high demand, access requests are rubber-stamped without any background or context around the request. These broad permission approvals fail to address specific circumstances or the potential risks associated with each access request.
The drawbacks of manual JIT solutions include:
Cloud and SaaS environments demand speed for developers to meet the needs of the business. In response to the productivity concerns of manual JIT, the next evolution of JIT aimed to improve approval times through static automation with pre-defined rules based on role and policy. And, while the approvals are faster, there is a security tradeoff.
These preconfigured rules look at static attributes such as the requester’s title and role in the organization or time of request for auto-approvals, but they don’t look at dynamic risk or behavioral attributes.
For example, every time Joe requests access to a developer role between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., the request is automatically approved because he is on the engineering team. But how do you know if Joe’s identity has been compromised, if the request does not align with Joe’s usual behavior, or if Joe violated policy last week?
While these solutions improve productivity, they are sacrificing security.
Dynamic JIT goes beyond statically defined rules and incorporates dynamic context around risk, usage, and behavior. AI is critical to providing these data insights and is emerging as the more effective way to modernize JIT to achieve both high security and high productivity.
AI helps by building behavior model baselines to understand what 'normal' or 'expected' behavior looks like and then detects anomalies for anything out of the ordinary.
With dynamic JIT, if Joe requests access to a high-risk privilege and if this is part of his regular routine, including his request history, device, and location, it can be automatically approved.
But what if Joe’s request came from a different location (maybe he is on vacation or perhaps his identity was compromised) or if he made a request more often compared to his peers? This would automatically trigger a manual review with all of the relevant data about Joe and his request. This type of “good friction” based on dynamic context helps your enterprise stay secure and prevent breaches.
AI-powered Dynamic JIT provides the highest security without hindering the productivity of the team while they meet the needs of the business.
By eliminating high-risk standing access by enforcing all access through dynamic JIT, you can strike a balance between robust security and operational efficiency that your teams are looking for. This ultimately means that even when an identity is compromised, there is no risk to the business.
Contact us to learn more about how Andromeda Security is pioneering AI- Powered JIT access with:
